Page 61 of The Vanishing
Cellina laces her fingers against the back of his head. “Giovanni.”
He pulls his head up from her neck with a jolt. Giovanni’s incisors are still elongated, his green eyes bewildered. His expression is a mix of confusion and worry, as if he’s just been awakened after being hypnotized. He rubs his palm down his face. “I’m so sorry—shit. God. Cellina, I—”
She leans in and kisses the tip of his nose. She moves to his cheek, then the corner of his mouth before meeting his lips. When Cellina pulls up, she whispers, staring into his distressed eyes, “It’s okay, Giovanni. You’re okay.”
Twenty-Eight
Nino marvels as they fly in the small commuter plane, the Arabian Sea magnificent and vivid beneath them in their descent toward Socotra Island. The coastline is the most striking gradient of blue, turquoise and green he’s ever seen. It reminds him of a precious gemstone hidden deep within a cave: raw malachite or fluorite.
The jagged cliffs loom in the backdrop, imposing. Immovable like strict barriers—titans drawn up from the earth and reaching toward the sky. They make him feel insignificant. His one hundred and fourteen years as a creature of this earth are nothing next to the millennia and fortitude of these mountains.
After twenty hours of travel, they land in Hadibu to meet Detective Cuevas. She and her third-gen deputy, Marcus, are their escort from the airport, driving them in an old white minibus toward the town they’ll be staying in before traveling to Lajos’s house in the mountains.
Within a few weeks, the detective had discovered the location, but it was abandoned. Not a single purebred could be found—in the house, or within the mud-brick village Nino had seen in the distance. Knowing that purebreds have a sharp sense of awareness, the detective asked that Nino and Haruka join them in Socotra to assist in the case.
The ride into town is rough, dusty and jostling against the road. Nino doesn’t bother looking over at his house cat of a mate, afraid of what he might see: eyes like daggers that read “I had to leave the comfort of my library for this? A nauseating ride in a toy bus?”
It’s basically what he’s thinking. Lately, when Haruka is displeased, his thoughts resonate loud in Nino’s head, whether he wants them to or not. Something about them sharing mind space for the past two months and while Nino’s tongue was regenerating has made communicating this way easier than ever before. Whether this is good or bad, Nino isn’t certain.
“Another monsoon is rolling in,” Detective Cuevas shouts over the noise of the road, the loud hum of the vehicle’s engine. “We’ll wait it out tonight, then take a helicopter tomorrow when the weather clears.”
The deputy turns a corner a little harder than necessary, making Nino grip the metal bar above him, but not before slamming into Haruka’s shoulder.
“Sorry about that.” Marcus raises a hand from the steering wheel.
Now, he does look over at his mate. Haruka is healthy again. After a few weeks of intentional TLC under Nino’s supervision (which included a series of homecooked meals, some pretty intense sexual encounters and, consequently, several nights of deep sleep), the dark circles are gone, his features elegant and glowing once more.
Also, his hair is short—the shortest Nino has ever seen it. He’d gotten it cut just before leaving. The young, lounging ukiyo-e feudal lord is gone, replaced by an intellectual university student who takes his research too seriously.
At present, Haruka’s expression is dead serious. His eyes are clenched shut. Nino shifts his gaze ahead. “How long is the helicopter ride to get to Lajos’s house?” he asks.
“About an hour,” the detective yells. “It’s deep in the Hajhir mountains. We can’t drive there. Any other method would take days of travel.”
God help me.
Nino blinks toward his mate.Sorry, Haru…
“This is it,” Detective Cuevas announces.
The vehicle slows, still bumping along the wide path that weaves through the village. Nino looks out the window. The sun is low with thick gray clouds hovering in the west.
Their surroundings are stark—colorless except for the singular spectrum of beige to dirt brown. The occasional pastel green of an awning. Hadibu is like a small town born in the middle of a desert wilderness. Most of the structures are packed together, flat and low. Some are dirty and partially destroyed, others are intact but with rock debris or litter scattered along the gravel in front of them. Clothes, blankets and household wares adorn the entrance of one structure they pass. Another, a small herd of goats.
The van stops in front of a squat square house with a large crack in the stone steps leading to the entrance.
“Your accommodations for the evening, my lords.” Detective Cuevas turns, smirking at them from the front passenger seat. Having traveled light, they grab their respective bags and head inside. The stone construction of the outside continues within the interior. It’s a single room with no pictures or decorations, only the most basic necessities: a twin-sized bed with a quilt, a wash basin, a chair. A naked light bulb hangs overhead, and a door in the back corner leads to a narrow bathroom with a toilet and shower.
“At least there’s hot water?” the detective says. She lifts her chin, snide. “There’s a kind of crappy hotel down the road, but they had a pipe burst yesterday, so this is the best we’ve got under short notice. You rich, upper-crust purebreds probably aren’t used to dumpy places like this. My apologies for your discomfort.”
Haruka is bent and rummaging through his bag against the bed, but he stands straight, eyeing the detective. “Why do you insult these people’s way of living in your attempt to mock us?”
The detective scoffs. “Please. You know what I mean—”
“I do not. Our accommodations are modest but adequate. The people of this town may live a different lifestyle than ours, but your judgment is insensitive.”
“Seriously?” she pushes back. “You’re going to stand here and act like their lifestyles are just ‘different’ from yours? You live in a beautiful, sprawling estate in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and want for nothing—living life happy dappy. Meanwhile, these people are penniless, starving and living in squalor.”
“What is your intent behind this declaration?” Haruka asks. “What should we do?”
